How to insert symbols and special characters in Excel

Let’s take a look.

There are several different ways to insert symbols and special characters.

One way, that’s not obvious, is to use AutoCorrect.

AutoCorrect is a feature built into Excel that automatically substitutes one bit of text for another.

Let’s try it.

We can do the same thing for trademark.

This launches the Symbol window which contains two tabs.

The Special Characters tab is a rather short list of commonly used characters.

If the character you need is listed here, select it and click Insert.

The Symbols tab has more options.

Here, you could select both a Font and a Subset of symbols.

Subsets are groups of related symbols.

For example, use the Subset menu to switch to arrows.

When you find the symbol you want, just click Insert.

you’ve got the option to also double-click to insert a symbol.

Let’s switch to Wingdings to find a checkmark and a checkbox symbol.